Neverwinter

Required Item Level: 2000 This is a 10 person skirmish that appears at the bottom half of every hour in Mantol-Derith. The entrance is found in the upper right portion of the zone.

Queue: You have to physically be in Mantol-Derith to be able to access this skirmish; this is why it's required you complete the Underdark quest arc. It is very similar to Tiamat where you go to the entry point and you have 5 minutes to enter the event while the game creates instances with all the players entering.

Group Queue: If you're in a Guild with numerous members you can make two groups of 5, and have everyone in a party. Then when the event opens, the group leaders should set a time in the 5 minute countdown to both enter the Queue. If you both receive the Queue notification at the same time, there's a good chance it's your fellow group. Obviously this is not foolproof, but it has worked for my guild.

Madness: When in the Demogorgon arena, this is an ever present debuff in all 3 Phases. As you're hit by attacks from mobs, stacks of madness will build. Once you reach around 10 stacks, your daily powers are locked from use. Once you hit 15 and higher stacks, you lose the ability to use your encounter powers. The only cure for the madness are the blue auras on the ground scattered around the arena. Some spawn and despawn, and others are static and never move. Just run into one to cleanse. Try and keep monsters out of the auras as they become tainted and unusable!

AoE: You may notice that you periodically take damage from some unseen enemy. There is a constant 'area of effect' damage spell hitting you whenever you're inside the arena. It doesn't proc often, but it's there enough when you don't seem to want it.

Again, the Demogorgon skirmish comes in three phases (are you sensing a pattern by now?). The key to winning this fight is knowing what to do... a couple people that don't know what to do can ruin the entire outcome. You have to get gold in all three phases to earn an overall gold in this skirmish.. it's a little less forgiving on the medal average per phase.


Phase 1: Closing the Rift Tears

This section is not relatively hard; but what causes groups to not get gold is opening every rift in the area. I can't stress this enough... ONLY open the giant Purple rifts! Completely ignore large blue rifts and the green rifts! This Phase is based off earning points, and you'll earn far more points towards gold when you open and defeat the enemies of the largest rifts.

The mistake that is generally made is people run around opening every rift they see and kite the adds around. Killing the adds is part of the process as doing so, opens more rifts. So upon opening the purple rift, the entire team should be in close proximity to burn the adds down; then move to the next purple rift. This is a 5 minute timed event; if you reach a gold medal before the timer expires, just finish off the remaining adds and the Phase will end when the timer runs out.
Demogorgon is also moving around the arena, he is immune to damage though. You can have a GF or OP offtank him; otherwise just ignore him and focus on rift tear enemies as best you can.


Phase 2: Goristro

Demogorgon retreats to a stalactite on the ceiling; so he's no longer romping around the zone... but he utilizes a new attack on the group.

Goristro has a boatload of hitpoints and will stay in the center of the room. He generally does not stray. Here's the tricky part; you will notice either yellow or black vortexes on the walls on the left and right of the room. These can vary as there can sometimes be one black and one yellow on both sides, or there can be just two yellows on one side and two blacks on one side (the easier of the two). There are two ways this can be handled.

1) Stay around Goristro and damage him, after his stomp attack, he will target a person to charge. His charge attack is denoted by a large red line on the floor. Goristro charges wherever this line is pointing; you only have a few seconds to aim him. You want to aim him at the yellow vortex on the wall. When he runs into it he'll damage himself. You NEVER want him pointed at a black vortex as this has the opposite effect and will heal 15% of Goristro's hitpoints. If you aren't in position, you're better served having him hit nothing instead of a black vortex. Should you be targeted and you have him lined up, just let him run you over.. do not attempt to dodge the charge! After his charge is complete, he'll jump back to the center of the room.

2) If you have an instance of all guild members with high enough DPS; you can simply avoid having to aim Goristro altogether. Once he spawns he walks into the middle of the room. From the blue aura at the entrance, everyone should charge and keep DPS on Goristro. Then once he's to charge, just have him charge the entrance. This is the shortest distance for him to travel. Range DPS can be sustained even when he crashes into the wall; then when he jumps back to the middle, he lands right in front of the melee DPS players.

After two charge attacks, Demogorgon will unleash his laser attack from the ceiling. This targets everyone on the ground. You have to retreat to one of the blue auras on the floor, this will break the targeting of the laser. The moment you've done this, run back to Goristro in the center of the room and prepare for his next target/charge. Rinse and repeat. You have 5 minutes to defeat him; should you earn gold before the timer is up, the next Phase will start.

Attack Cycle:

First cycle after entering the arena:
Goristro - normal attacks
Goristro - stomp attack
Goristro - charge attack (must hit yellow vortex)
Demogorgon - Pink laser attack: make your way to a blue aura to negate the attack

All subsequent attack sequences:
Goristro - normal attacks
Goristro - stomp attack
Goristro - charge attack (must hit yellow vortex)
Cycle Repeats!
Goristro - normal attacks
Goristro - stomp attack
Goristro - charge attack (must hit yellow vortex)
Demogorgon - Pink laser attack: make your way to a blue aura to negate the attack
Entire Cycle Repeats!


Phase 3: Demogorgon

Demogorgon himself comes down to fight; this is probably the most straight forward part of the entire encounter. Attempt to pull him towards the entrance nearest the blue aura so you can cleanse. Zerg him as quickly as possible. Just remember that Madness is going to build on your character, which will eventually cause loss of DPS. Cleanse this debuff in the blue auras around the room. Otherwise, straight DPS and burn Demogorgon down as fast as you can.